Why It?s Worth Fighting Your Dragons And Start Public Speaking!Posted by Nick Niesen on October 27th, 2010 Everyone hears about being nervous when speaking, and when you overcome it, you What you don?t hear from successful speakers is about the journey itself. For example, when I started in the field of speaking, I was a corporate employee. As a project engineer, I had to develop concepts and designs to solve problems within the plant. I was good at this and yet my career progress was slow because I simply couldn?t speak well, I would become nervous, tongue tied and confused. So when I started my public speaking career I was so scared and terrified, that even the Clearly, I didn?t want to go through my life like that so I did some training and got ready With this speech I was competing for a prestigious Silver Cup and I was excited because I walked out onto the stage in front of 200 people and arrived at the podium. While shaking the lectern so much, I watched with horror, as my notes slid onto the floor. In total confusion now, I decide to start my speech without picking up the notes. My voice quavered as I stated my name, and then my mind went completely blank. After what seemed an eternity, I grabbed my notes from the floor and fled the stage. All I achieved that day was to let people know who I was and that I was one pathetic speaker. Needless to say , I didn?t get the prize or even a polite or sympathetic applause from the audience. It was such a horrifying experience that I had to make a decision to quit or do something about it. Well I studied, practised and used everything that I write about in my book and then some If I didn?t do a brilliant job, my career would finish, the company would suffer and I reckon That would mean, a massive change in lifestyle for my family, changing schools, changing So as I walked to the Podium this time I could feel this huge pressure bearing down on me. And do you know? I was confident, created humour and had them laughing, created pathos so they could feel Pretty good eh? Oh yes, I got promoted and realised that day, that being a great public speaker helps you make So what made the difference? What transformed me from bumbling idiot to charismatic speaker? And could anybody do the same? Clearly, the answer is yes, if they went through all the stuff they I had. Why am I qualified to say this? Because it is based upon my learnings, my studies, my experiments, good and bad, and And then I even wrote my own book on how to overcome the Fear of Public Speaking! As Chairman of the Public Speaking Group at the Australian Institute of Management I have So overcoming the fear and building the skills, step by step, not only transforms your And isn?t that a good enough reason to start! Like it? Share it!More by this author |